Fleur de Temps
by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: What if Reinette had come aboard the TARDIS after all? Smart, ambitious and beautiful, the Doctor is dazzled by her and neglects Rose and Mickey, with calamitous results. Meanwhile, things are changing... NOT Reinette-bashing.Flower of Time universe. AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: Fleur de Temps**

**Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel**

**Pairings: Reinette/Ten, retrospective Rose/Nine, a bit of post- Rose/Ten. **

**Story Summary: **

**What if Reinette had come aboard the TARDIS after all? Smart, ambitious and beautiful, the Doctor is dazzled by her and neglects Rose and Mickey, with calamitous results. AU.**

**Setting: Series Two. After "The Girl in the Fireplace."**

**Author notes: **

_This is… pure self-indulgence, really. Not even written with an audience in mind. Personally I like Reinette, but I can see conflict between her and Rose there, so I've exaggerated potential character faults here. Most anti-Reinette stories make her cheap and stupid though, which is a shame because in the episode she wasn't. I feel making her like that detracts from the story, so I've tried to write one that's different. Yah. I didn't bother trying to make this as good as usual, though, so be warned… I think the dialogues fairly good and in character, though._

--

**FLEUR DE TEMPS**

**--**

The Doctor was not – quite the person he used to be. The other regenerations would certainly never have gone around snogging mistresses of the king, the TARDIS thought, even if they _were_ French, and pretty, and smart, and clever. It just wasn't something that would have occurred to them. Of course, Time Lords were always unbelievably thick about some things, the number of times she's wished she'd had arms to slap understanding into his head when one of his companions – but that was pointless, Time Lords were just made that way.

But now, here he was, ignoring precious, _alive_ Rose who understood some things about the universe in ways he didn't, treating the clever, small-minded woman he'd brought with him like some special crystal and letting her treat Rose the way she did. She could see his thoughts, and he was as vain and pleased as a peacock, over a shrewd flighty woman who admired him only because of _her_, the TARDIS, the ship that was ignored –

-

Rose had looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS had looked back, and deep in Rose's subconscious mind a bond had formed between them. Every hurt, every word or gesture, every little fear and worry that makes up a human's life the TARDIS felt also.

The Doctor was damaging the wonderful, alive, powerful core of Rose, and the TARDIS couldn't allow that. If he didn't come to his senses soon, she'd have to take direct action, no matter how forbidden it was…

**oo o0o oo**

Rose wandered gloomily over and sat at the table next to Mickey, having just been given another 'friendly' hint about decorous attire by Reinette. Mickey glanced at her sympathetically.

"Don't listen to her, she's just stuck in the nineteenth century," he told Rose.

"Eighteenth."

"Whatever." He gestured the inaccuracy away as trivial. "You look nice, you always look nice."

Rose sighed.

"Thanks." She slumped in her seat. "She's like, I don't know, this great blonde cat. Always getting her claws in, and the Doctor thinks she's being _nice_."

Mickey snorted in disgust.

"I never thought I'd say this but this Doctor is a fool. The last one was a bastard –"

"Mickey…"

" – well he was Rose, he was always calling me Ricky and saying I was an idiot, but he was smart and alright and looked after you Rose. But then he changed his face and now he's a prick." He gestured angrily despite Rose's shocked look. "I mean it, Rose. He sees some fickle upper-class snob and next thing he's all over her like a rash like she's the best thing ever and ignores his best friend and lets that bint insult you every chance she gets. I'm sick of it Rose. You're worth more than that. The old Doctor knew that. He doesn't deserve you."

Rose found that tears were prickling in her eyes as Mickey folded his arms in a glaring, earnest way.

"What am I supposed to do?" she choked out. "I mean, I can't just leave him – "

"Why not?" Mickey demanded.

"He's the Doctor!" Rose protested.

"Ah, but that's just it, he's not anymore, is he? Not your Doctor, anyway. And if he's forgotten everything you two have been through coz he's too busy flirting and who knows what else, God, why not leave him." His tone of voice made it a statement of fact rather than a question.

Rose didn't say anything. Everything that Mickey had just said rang true. She had loved the Doctor, still loved him in fact, but he wasn't the man she'd first fallen in love with. Wasn't the snarky, matter-of-fact bloke who had shown her the universe, who patiently explained things he thought were simple, who shied away from emotion but who somehow made it clear to her that he cared… This new Doctor was flippant, unreliable, sometimes unreasonable, inadvertently callous… so _selfish _sometimes. Rose would give up anything and everything for him, really, she would, but to be thrown away for an ambitious narrow-minded woman who couldn't see what was really there underneath everything…?

-

Rose didn't know what to do.

**oo o0o oo**

It was at this point that the TARDIS's extremely stretchy temper finally snapped. If TARDISes saw any point in cursing, she would have done so.

_Right,_ she decided, _he's hurt Rose too much. It's time to sort things out before the imbecile makes a complete mess of things._

**oo o0o oo**

Rose dreamt that night.

-

It was a peculiar dream. Rose had never been able to remember what had happened after she'd looked into the TARDIS, before she woke up on the console room floor with the other Doctor dying in front of her. Well, obviously the thing that vaguely resembled a plan had worked, sort of, well he wasn't permanently dead and the Daleks was gone, so obviously it had worked more or less…

But now, here was memory, flooding forth from some previously untapped reservoir.

Rose _burned_.

-

It was astonishing, wonderful, and utterly terrifying. Everything that was, had been could be, would be, it was all spread out in front of her. She was drowning in it, burning in the flames of existence on every plane, but even so one small thought crept through,

_is this what the TARDIS sees all the time?_

and there reassuringly at the back of her mind where she was stopping Rose from being utterly consumed, the TARDIS said

_Yes._

And things flowed between, Rose, TARDIS, which was which she didn't know and honestly it didn't matter because really they were all about the same thing right now – saving the Doctor. And Rose had stepped out, truly seeing everything for what it was. The Daleks were so small and insignificant, just _dust_ in a different configuration that was all, but there was the Doctor, just as frail and fragile but burning brighter than any dull star, acting like a pebble to the universe's lake and his emotions sloshing forward like a wave.

_My Doctor_, one of them had said. Possibly it was both of them.

He looked so frightened, so afraid for her, so desperate to help her, and he took the power from her and absorbed it and released it, never caring that it burned through his bodily self like a flame to tissue paper. And Rose had forgotten, had forgotten that her own Doctor had given up himself in order to save her. But now she remembered, and could feel the subdued lingering echo of power running at the bottom of her mind where the TARDIS waited.

-

Rose woke with a gasp in the dark, her mind reeling.

**oo o0o oo**

The Doctor hummed cheerfully as he waited around outside Reinette's door, hands in pockets, waiting for her to finish her toilette so that he could escort her to breakfast.

Oh, she was amazing, his Reinette – well, not _his_, he corrected himself, but he knew what he meant – so clever and amusing and it did help that she was beautiful, yes, but honestly what did it matter when she was so clever and made him laugh and _understood_ him and looked around at the universe with such bright eyes?

Reinette's door opened and she came out in a rustle of skirts, smiling.

"Good morning, my lonely angel," she greeted him. "I see that my tardiness has inconvenienced you yet again."

He grinned back.

"Oh not at all," he began, "gives me time to think, frankly not enough of that with all these adventures I always seem to be on, of course I find the time anyway because I'm brilliant, did I mention that? but it's nice to have a bit of quiet time to think to myself, _especially_," he smiled at her with mischief dancing in his eyes, "about a certain beautiful, very intelligent young woman of my acquaintance."

The smile was returned.

"Oh, really?"

"Mm, yes, did I ever tell you some of the smart things Rose has done?" he asked in a deliberately offhand manner.

She gave a gasp, and a choked gurgle of laughter. She tried to look piqued, but the laughter in her eyes gave her away.

"Really, Doctor, it is not polite to talk of another young woman when you are already talking, and I might add, flirting with one," she told him coyly.

"Oh, is that right?" he scratched the back of his head, "well I'm terribly rude sometimes, thought I might have mentioned that."

"Well," and she looked demurely up through her lashes, "I'm sure quite a lot can be excused for such an man as yourself, Doctor."

The Doctor grinned at her and together they walked through the door into the dining room. Before they'd simply had a kitchen, but the TARDIS has made the usual polite adjustments for her new guest.

Mickey and Rose were eating breakfast already. They were a bit quiet this morning, the Doctor noted, ah well, probably not quite awake yet.

He helped Reinette into a chair opposite Rose and next to his own.

"Thank you," she said briskly but politely. She smiled softly and brightly at Rose.

"What a nice colour," Reinette complimented her. "It suits you very well."

"Thanks," Rose muttered.

"Although," Reinette's voice became _so_ apologetic and so kind, "are you sure it is quite becoming to wear such a shapeless garment? And trousers, quite indelicate, don't you think? Of course, it's not your fault, it was the way you were raised – "

"_What, in a midden?_"

"Rose!" the Doctor exclaimed, shocked.

But to his surprise a slight tinge of colour had appeared in Reinette's cheeks.

"Well," she said repressively, "if you don't know help when someone tries to give it –"

"What, because I'm too stupid and lower-class and _cheap_ to realise how much more qualified you are at everything?" Rose was on her feet. The Doctor noticed in surprise that she was wearing one of her old hoodies, a red one, and a shirt and jeans. And was her hair _longer?_ …Of course not, he reassured himself, hair doesn't grow inches overnight…

"You think I don't _know_ what you think?" Rose spat. "You with your little digs about me and my mother and how _hard_ it must have been for me and always telling me how I could dress better, like I'm some cheap tart –" her eyes turned dark and blazing " – and implying I'm not _good_ enough or _smart_ enough or _talented_ enough to be here, and the way you just _ignore_ Mickey completely because he's beneath your notice – "

"Hear hear!" Mickey added.

"and thinking way inside your head about special you are and how dull we are and how clever you were to get here and how we're just a silly ship even if we travel in time –"

Rose stopped, but she'd already slipped.

"Hang on," the Doctor demanded, "a silly ship? _That_ bit wasn't you." He folded his arms and frowned.

Rose just looked at him.

"It's both of us, just like we've always been since we looked into each other," she said in a flat voice. "I didn't realise until last night. But deep down I knew, I just didn't know how I knew things." She looked down, pushing her hair out of her face before looking up again. "The you that was here before, he would have noticed. The you that died for me."

Reinette went "what?" sharply, but he barely noticed. He'd gone cold.

"What are you talking about?"

"I remember," Rose went on in that unnaturally steady, clear voice, "what happened. You know, I've been thinking about leaving, because you never notice, you just ignore things and ignore people like sometimes they're just not important. But people are always important. And last night I remembered what happened after I looked into the TARDIS and she looked into me and I thought, 'why am I still sticking around?' The old you died for me, you didn't do it just so you could ignore like some bit of furniture or something, or replace me or just abandon me like you did Sarah Jane –"

"Leave her out of this," he said sharply.

" – and the last thing you said, before I was left in London while you faced the Daleks, was that if there was one thing I could do for you it was live. 'Live, Rose Tyler.' You remember that?"

And he did, it all came rushing back in perfect clarity, the love, what he was sacrificing himself for

– and remembering who he had been made him begin to realise what was happening.

"No," he said, the beginnings of fear in his voice.

"So I'm going to take your advice. I'm going to live. And that means leaving."

"You can't," he said desperately.

"You're just going to leave him?" Reinette asked sharply. "After everything he –"

"Oh shut up," Mickey told her. "You made it clear you want to be Queen Bee. All this 'I'm better than you, the Doctor's mine' stuff you've been doing. Well it's worked. You can have him. Rose deserves better."

"What, and you think that you are the alternative?" Her voice was cutting.

When he replied Mickey's voice was full of reluctant, raw pain.

"No. Not me. I know that. Rose's way beyond me."

"Mickey," Rose began.

"No Rose," he interrupted, "Maybe we had something once and it was good, I'll admit that. It was great. But you've… I don't know, grown maybe. You deserve someone who can match you, be as good as you are. And the old Doctor was that. But this one's not, that's all." He looked the Doctor in the eye. "I just hope you realise what you've done." He turned to Rose. "Come on, let's go before he starts all the lame justification." There was disgust in Mickey's voice.

Rose just looked at him, and he felt everything stripped away in that gaze.

"Bye Doctor," she said, and together she and Mickey left.

-

The Doctor stood, disbelieving, then ran to follow, but the TARDIS had other ideas. The door slammed shut and she began dematerialising.

"No!" the Doctor shouted, banging on the door and whirling to frantically work at the console to no avail, "I won't lose her again!"

Reinette put a hand on his shoulder. He stood still, then reached up to grip it.

"I've lost her," and the ages showed through in his voice, "I've lost her."

Reinette's face was unreadable.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: Fleur de Temps**

**Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel**

**Pairings: Reinette/Ten, retrospective Rose/Nine, a bit of post- Rose/Ten. **

**Story Summary: **

**What if Reinette had come aboard the TARDIS after all? Smart, ambitious and beautiful, the Doctor is dazzled by her and neglects Rose and Mickey, with calamitous results. AU.**

**Setting: Series Two. After "The Girl in the Fireplace."**

**Author notes: **

_Okay. Just to clarify Reinette's attitudes in this chapter a little regarding class and birth:_

_In real life, Reinette had _bourgeoisie_ roots. She was, however, raised as an educated woman with many accomplishments, so that whatever the facts of her status in society were, she nonetheless lived, in many ways, the sort of privileged life the aristocrats lived – and I doubt that she would have had much contact with shop girls and truly low-class people: the _les paysans_. So, I tried to make it fit with history as much as I could – but when you come down to it, it's entertaining fiction, not a historical documentary. So historical accuracy will be sacrificed when necessary for the sake of entertainment, I'm afraid._

--

**FLEUR DE TEMPS**

**CHAPTER TWO**

**--**

Rose and Mickey stepped out onto bitumen and walked forwards as behind them, the TARDIS doors slammed shut and she dematerialised. They were standing on the Powell Estate – and didn't it feel peculiar, knowing now how that had come about, and what the Powell Estate was – among the concrete and brick of the 21st century.

Rose put a hand over her mouth to hold back the sobs.

She could feel the TARDIS, when she thought about it, just as angry and hurt as she was.

"What do we do now?" Mickey asked. Rose just shook her head, tears brimming over. Mickey sighed and enfolded her in a hug.

-

They stayed like that for a while, Rose crying silently into his shoulder long after the sobbing had stopped. Finally, though, she moved back, wiping her eyes, smearing the mascara trails her tears had left across her face.

"I never thought it would come to this," she said, voice sad and quiet, and only wobbling a little. "I thought he'd… I don't know."

"You want to see your mum?" Mickey asked. He wasn't sure that Rose would want to hear Jackie railing against the Doctor, but on the other hand, if you were in trouble or had just had your heart stomped on Jackie was pretty good at looking after you and making you feel better.

Mickey was mildly surprised when Rose shook her head.

"No," she said, voice quiet but certain. "I'm gonna find Sarah Jane."

**oo o0o oo**

"I've lost her."

Reinette's face was unreadable for a moment. Then she squeezed his shoulder gently.

"Oh, my poor Doctor," she said softly. "Life is never fair to you, is it?"

The Doctor turned to the sympathetic voice.

"Alright, so I might not have been paying her so much attention lately," he began, angry and hurt and defensive, "but running off like that, after everything we've done? after everything_ I've_ done? That's not very fair, is it?" He whirled to address the console. "And you! Helping her gang up against me!"

All he got was a mental impression of coldness.

Reinette approached him and laid her hand on his arm.

"You cannot blame it, Doctor," she comforted him. "I am sure that the ship did so only out of pity for Rose."

"Her," he corrected absently. "Not it. But Rose - !"

"Well Doctor," she said tactfully, "I have frequently noticed that people of her class are often unreasonable and devoid of proper feeling. She is only a common shop-girl, after all. You cannot expect her to have the sensibilities and intellect of the higher classes. Besides, if she does not have a sense of your superior nature then it is for the best, surely? To be honest with you, had I been in your place I should have dismissed her before now for her pertness and insolence. I take it as an indication of your generous nature that you have not done so." She smiled at him.

The Doctor stared at her.

"People of her class?" His voice was carefully neutral, his eyes questioning, so that she didn't understand.

"Why yes, Doctor. Raised by a trollop in the back-streets of London, without acquiring any accomplishments or refinement, bolding pushing herself forward, not to mention such an unbecoming want of delicacy-! Why, you need only look at her familiarity with Mr Smith. Such improper behaviour with a man, and one of such colouring! Despite her deficiencies of nature, however, I admit to being impressed by the degree to which she has bettered herself. It is always a testament to man's ability to triumph when such a person succeeds in moving into better circles than that into which they were born, is it not?"

"Oh, Rassilon!" She broke off at his exclamation to find him looking at her in amazement and ...horror? "And you've been, telling her these things? Don't you understand…?" He trailed off and made a despairing, anguished noise at the blank incomprehension in her eyes.

"Of course not, you've lived as an aristocrat in the eighteenth century, that automatically gives you all kinds of prejudices and preconceptions against people of different times and walks of life!" He was bitter and angry with himself, and whirled to face her, taking her by the shoulders and looking into her eyes. "But they're not true, listen to me, this is very important. Birth is a construct, a fabrication designed to provide moral and social justification for the injustices and blatant social inequality of your time. Class, as you perceive it, doesn't exist. Intelligence, and 'sensibility' as you call it, is distributed without discrimination across the population, regardless of social status, or income, or race. Someone like Rose, or Mickey, has just as much right to their opinions, and just as much intelligence or empathy as any member of the nobility. Any belief otherwise is a false notion from your time. Do you understand?"

Reinette looked into the earnest, very serious brown eyes in surprise and dawning wonder.

"You truly believe this," she murmured.

"Yes. Absolutely," the Doctor confirmed. Reinette stared into his eyes for a moment longer, then turned, breaking free of his grasp, to take a turn around the room.

She turned to face him.

"If what you say is true, and it is evident that you believe it to be so, then I have gravely misjudged the ways things are aboard your ship. But if that is indeed the case, then I fear that they are beyond my understanding. Tell me, what is Rose to you?"

The Doctor gaped slightly for a moment.

"Well… she's Rose," he said, scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably, and the way that he said it suggested that it ought to be an explanation in itself. "How d'you explain something like that? In your day relationships are all mapped out into little boxes and compartments with labels in them, all to the slightest degree. Rose, Rose is, Rose. She's brilliant, and wonderful, and saves the world."

Reinette suppressed a sigh in the face of his evident sincerity.

"That may be, Doctor, but it does not tell me what she is to you," she pointed out.

The Doctor walked around, running his hand through his hair, becoming more and more agitated, for reasons that Reinette could not discern. Finally he stopped, and turned to look at her, hand dropping to his side.

"Well," he said quietly, "I suppose, in your terms, and this isn't an exact translation mind you, it's a lot more complicated than that, Rose is… well, I suppose you'd say she's my consort."

Reinette stared at him. He fidgeted awkwardly. He was fairly sure that he could hear a Northern voice in the back of his head snorting _Domestic!_ He tried to ignore the way it sounded strangely smug.

The next thing he knew Reinette's palm connected with the side of his face in a sharp, stinging slap.

"Ow!" He put his hand to the side of his face that burned. "What was that for?" he asked indignantly, and feeling a little nervous at the absolutely furious expression on her face.

"You brought me here under false pretences!" Reinette hadn't raised her voice at all, but had somehow infused it with the vibrating power and anger of a shout. "You have behaved in a manner that suggested romantic intentions, Doctor, without ever mentioning your degree of relationship to Rose. You have a consort, and yet you feel free to pursue my affections without thought for my feelings, or for hers? I have misunderstood her status and role in your household, Doctor, and because of this I have treated her in a fashion that is shameful both for her and for myself. Now she has left you, with only her faithful steward – for now I am better acquainted with the situation I must suppose him to be something of the kind, must I not? – for protection. Would it not have been better to disclose the truth to me when you first invited me aboard, and spared us all what has occurred?"

"I – I –" The Doctor was bereft at words. _It isn't like that!_ he wanted to shout, but when he actually thought about it, it was close enough.

"I'm sorry," he sighed, and closed his eyes, wondering what to do about this mess.

-

He was surprised to feel a small hand being laid on his arm. He opened his eyes to find Reinette looking at him with compassion and understanding in her eyes.

"Many a man has made such mistakes, Doctor," she said, "and if the love between you and your consort is true, then you need only offer proof of it to her to repair this breach between you."

"But the TARDIS isn't co-operating!" he protested. She raised an eyebrow.

"Then perhaps you should consider why, my dear Doctor."

**oo o0o oo**

They'd gone back to Mickey's flat, and it had taken only ten minutes on the internet for him to find what he wanted: Sarah Jane Smith's address. Meanwhile Rose washed her face and combed her hair back, and went fishing through Mickey's bathroom cabinet for the mascara and lipstick she knew would still be in there somewhere. Once she'd reapplied her makeup she felt absurdly better; readier to face things. She went back out to find Mickey waiting for her.

"I've got her address," he told her. "She lives in Ealing. You want to go?"

Rose nodded.

"Yeah."

-

Rose rang the doorbell and waited, feeling nervous. A few moments later the door opened, to reveal Sarah Jane.

She took in the fragile, trying-to-be-brave look on Rose's face and understood immediately.

"Oh dear," she said with pained sympathy, "do you want a cup of tea?"

"That'd be nice, thanks," Rose agreed sadly.

"Do come in, both of you." Sarah Jane moved away form the door, and Rose and Mickey walked through it.

Sarah Jane was moving through the house, so Rose and Mickey followed her to find her in the kitchen, preparing tea things.

"Now, are you a sugar and milk person, or do you think that makes it too bland and sweet?" Sarah Jane asked.

"Milk, two sugars," Rose replied.

"And you, Mickey?"

"I'm fine thanks," Mickey said. "No tea for me."

"Anything else?"

"Nah, I'm alright."

Sarah Jane came back to the table a few minutes later with two cups of tea. She placed one in front of Rose, and settled into an empty chair with the other.

"Now," she said to Rose, "why don't you tell me what all this is about?"

So Rose began to explain.

By the end of it Sarah Jane was looking saddened and quite disappointed in the Doctor.

"He's always the same, isn't he?" she sighed. She patted Rose's arm. "I'm sorry, Rose."

"I'm sorry to come, barging in on you," Rose began, "I just needed someone to talk to..."

"I quite understand," Sarah Jane assured her. "And most people wouldn't, and that's it, isn't it?" Rose nodded. "Don't worry. I meant it when I said, look me up. The Doctor… he can be hard to get over. The more support you have, the better, I think."

"Any idea 'bout what you want to do next?" Mickey asked Rose.

"I dunno, really. I didn't think that far." She frowned at Sarah Jane in sudden thought. "You're a journalist, aren't you? Is that all you do?"

Sarah Jane gave a smile of embarrassed pride.

"Well, a little more than that, really. I suppose you want to see what I get up to?"

"Yeah thanks," Rose replied.

"Come on then. I'll show you the attic. I think you'll like it up there."

Smiling at them both, Sarah Jane led the way to the attic.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: Fleur de Temps**

**Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel**

**Pairings: Reinette/Ten, retrospective Rose/Nine, a bit of post- Rose/Ten. **

**Story Summary: **

**What if Reinette had come aboard the TARDIS after all? Smart, ambitious and beautiful, the Doctor is dazzled by her and neglects Rose and Mickey, with calamitous results. AU.**

**Setting: Series Two. After "The Girl in the Fireplace."**

**Author notes: **

_There'll be a bit of Series Three in here, but it's not gonna just be rehashed – it'll go differently. Also, Rose & Mickey will have their own adventures, for the moment. In the next few chapters I'll alternate – a chapter or so for Rose, a chapter or so for the Doctor. This chapter is mostly Doctor + co., but you see a glimpse of what Rose and Mickey are getting up to at the beginning._

* * *

**FLEUR DE TEMPS**

**CHAPTER THREE**

* * *

Two days later and Rose and Mickey were ready to leave Sarah Jane's. Rose had refused to go home, so all they had were what they'd left the TARDIS with. This meant that Rose had been forced to get a new access card for her bank account, as the other was still on the TARDIS. She'd bought a backpack, now filled with new clothes, and Mickey had done the same, wondering what she was planning.

Mickey could sort of understand why Rose didn't want to go home; it'd bring home the fact that she'd left the Doctor and the TARDIS and that whole life forever. Still, he was beginning to worry.

-

Rose clattered down the stairs with a big grin. Mickey couldn't help feel a certain amount of trepidation.

"What you grinning like that for?" he wanted to know.

Rose's grin grew wider.

"Well, you know how Sarah Jane's helped a bunch of aliens here and there, right?" she began.

Mickey's worry increased.

"Turns out one of them works for an intergalactic cruise company, was able to get us some tickets. It cost practically everything I've go tin my bank account, 'specially with the current exchange rate, even with the discount she gave us, but they're sending a shuttle out for us tomorrow to pick us up."

Rose was beaming by the time she finished this.

Mickey took the news that he and Rose were going on a space cruise with fortitude.

"Space tourists? Gonna be a bit different from your usual sort of thing, isn't it?" he asked doubtfully.

Rose shrugged.

"A bit, yeah," her grin returned, "but you get adventure everywhere. Sarah Jane's gonna drop us there. It'll be fun." She nudged him.

Mickey sighed, but what the hell.

" Mickey Smith, intergalactic man of mystery," he joked. "I like the sound of that."

"Rose Tyler and companion Mickey Smith, you mean," Rose teased.

"Oi!" Mickey pretended to look offended. Then he grinned. "Sounds good to me."

"Come on," Rose smiled mischievously, "we need to buy some more luggage and clothes."

Mickey groaned.

"I knew there was a catch."

**oo o0o oo**

Time passed.

**oo o0o oo**

The patient was a grinning loon with dark hair, apparently amused by everything around him. He seemed a bit daft, frankly. Cute, though, Martha thought.

The blonde woman by his bedside was astoundingly pretty, with her pale hair pulled back in twists to form a bun so that her excellent features were fully visible. She was wearing a white satin blouse with long sleeves that buttoned up to the throat, and a voluminous red skirt that could have been straight out of the 1950s. She also had the tiniest waist Martha had ever seen. _Had_ to have been the result of corsetry. The amount of internal damage it must have caused made Martha wince.

"Now then Mr Smith," the supervising doctor, Mr Stoker, greeted the patient, ignoring the flock of medical students following him around like a bunch of ducklings, "a very good morning to you. How are you today?"

"Oh, you know," Mr Smith said airily, "not so bad, still a bit, well, blah."

"He was feeling a little nauseous earlier," interposed the blonde woman. For some reason her eyes were sparkling.

"John Smith, admitted yesterday with severe abdominal pains," Stoker said. "And you are?" he asked the woman.

She gave him an alluring, demure smile, her eyes bright like sapphires.

"Reinette Poisson," she introduced herself, using the French pronunciation. Come to think of it, she had a slight French accent, but Martha hadn't noticed until now. "I am a friend of John's. We were travelling together yesterday when he became ill."

"I see," Stoker was slightly flustered by the beautiful young woman, but covered it with a professional manner. "Jones, why don't you see what you can find? Amaze me."

Martha jumped at being addressed. She moved forward and pressed the stethoscope to his chest.

She frowned. That was weird… Not quite believing what she was doing, she moved the stethoscope to the other side of Mr Smith's chest, where she heard exactly the same thing; a strong heartbeat, with a softer echo in between the beats.

_You have got to be kidding me._

She stared at Mr Smith, who was grinning like an idiot. He winked at her.

"I weep for future generations," Stoker sighed. "Are you having trouble locating the heart, Miss Jones?"

"Uh…" Martha looked around, still in disbelief, looking for any kind of logical explanation for what she'd just heard.

Reinette just met Martha's eyes, her own knowing and brimful with merriment.

_What the hell is going on here?_ Martha wondered, while Stoker said something scathing and reached for Mr Smith's chart, dropping it when he was zapped by a build-up of static electricity.

Mr Smith peered at the chart in mild interest. Reinette was still watching Martha with that mixture of amusement and knowledge.

Whatever else happened, Martha was going to get to the bottom of this.

-

Martha made her way back to Mr Smith later that day, during her break. Tish had tried to call, so that they could sort out the looming disaster that was Leo's party, but Martha had fobbed her off. Martha wanted to assume that the thing with the two hearts was just a fluke, or something, but the blonde woman had looked so damn _knowing_.

Maybe the bloke had one of those weird congenital conditions… Martha vaguely remembered someone telling her about a boxer in the 1800s or something with two hearts…

Martha peered into the ward. Smith was in bed, talking animatedly to Reinette, who had an open book in one hand, but didn't appear to be paying it any attention at the moment.

"You are speaking nonsense again," Reinette told him. She was smiling though.

"Well, you know me," Smith began. He spotted Martha. "Well, hullo. Jones, isn't it?"

"Martha Jones," Martha agreed uncertainly.

"Let me guess." Smith stuck his hands behind his head and leaned back. "You're curious about this morning, aren't you?"

"Two hearts," Martha blurted. "You seemed to have two hearts. But how can you–"

Reinette laughed.

"He is the Doctor," she said merrily. "You must throw away everything you think you know about the world when dealing with him."

Smith beamed at her.

"Oh, you get me so well."

His face fell a bit.

Reinette patted his hand sympathetically, and he pulled a bright grin back onto his face and looked at Martha.

"Two hearts, that's me," he agreed sunnily.

"How, though?" Martha persisted. "Is it a congenital–"

This time 'the Doctor' sniggered.

Seeing Martha's baffled, frustrated look, he tried to stop, but couldn't quite manage it.

He cleared his throat.

"Ur-hem. Well. Kind of, I suppose." He visibly fought down another snigger. "Except that my species is supposed to have two hearts, unlike humans."

There was a faint emphasis on the last word. It couldn't quite be called superior, but it was… similar.

"The Doctor is an angel from another world," Reinette explained. She glanced at the Doctor with a smile. "His ship of wonders is capable of travel to anywhere in time or space. His wonderful, amazing ship," she added as an afterthought.

The Doctor chortled.

"Reinette offended the old girl," he told Martha conspirationally. "Well, so did I, but she has to forgive me eventually."

"Oh so sure of yourself," Reinette retorted. "And had you taken the time to explain that your ship was as vain and capricious as any human woman, then perhaps I would have treated her more respectfully when I first came aboard. You deserve her displeasure far more than I do."

The Doctor smiled faintly, but didn't disagree.

"Are you telling me you're an _alien?_" Martha asked skeptically.

"Yup."

Martha was interrupted by another frantic intern.

"Martha," Julia Swales choked, staring at the window in terror. "The rain…"

The Doctor and Reinette's gazes swung around in unison. Martha turned.

At first she couldn't see what had everyone so fussed – it was just rain. Then she noticed.

"It's going up," Julia quavered.

"The rain is going up," Martha repeated, in horrified disbelief.

"Here we go," the Doctor muttered. He climbed out of bed and drew the curtains, as Reinette joined the others by the window.

"Hold on," Reinette said urgently, and grabbed onto the window sill.

Next moment the entire building began shaking violently. Martha and Julia were thrown sideways, a multitude of random objects falling from the countertops and cupboards and raining down on them.

After a wild moment the shaking stopped.

Martha got to her feet shakily.

"What in hell was that?"

"Are you alright?" Julia asked.

"I think so, yeah. It felt like an earthquake, or–"

"It was not an earthquake," Reinette interrupted. She was staring out the window.

"Martha? It's night. It was lunchtime." Julia was having trouble keeping a hold on her rising hysteria.

"I believe that we may be on the moon," Reinette said quietly, without turning around.

"What?" Martha stared out the window as well. She blinked, unable to believe it. "We're on the moon."

"We can't be."

"We're on the moon," Martha confirmed. She said it again, unable to believe it yet seeing the evidence before her eyes. "We're on the bloody moon."

Martha turned and left the room. Out in the corridors it was chaos, people panicking and screaming, but Martha pushed past them into a side room.

From the open window she could see the earth, floating in the black.

Returning to the ward she had just been in, Martha announced,

"All right, everyone back to bed, we've got an emergency but we'll sort it out."

Martha noticed that Reinette was watching her with faint amusement and what seemed to be approval, but she had other things to worry about right now. She joined Reinette and Julia at the window.

"It's real, it's really real." She took a deep breath, and reached for the window latch.

"Don't!" Julia sobbed. "We'll lose all the air."

Reinette put an arm around the other woman.

"It will be all right, I assure you," she told Julia. Her eyes met Martha's seriously.

"These windows aren't exactly airtight," Martha explained. "If the air was going to get sucked out it would have happened straight away, but it didn't. How come?"

"Very good point!" the Doctor exclaimed, throwing aside the bed curtains. He was now wearing a blue suit instead of his hospital gown. "Brilliant, in fact. The question is, then: how are we breathing?"

"That is a hideous suit," Reinette told him, eyeing it with disapproval. "It goes ill with your complexion. You are better suited to a different shade of blue, or better yet, a different colour entirely."

The Doctor made a face and waved her observation away.

"Pah! Who cares about a suit? We're on the _moon_. Martha, what have we got? Is there a balcony on this floor, or a verandah, or…?"

"By the patients lounge, yeah," Martha told him.

"Fancy going out?" the Doctor suggested.

"Okay."

"We might die," he pointed out, watching her.

"We might not," Martha pointed out right back.

"An excellent spirit to be in," Reinette commented. "Doctor, this one is good."

The Doctor grinned at them both.

"C'mon then. Not her," he tilted his head towards an hopelessly crying Julia, "she'd only slow us down."

-

Martha showed them the way to the patients lounge, and pushed open the doors, stepping out onto the balcony.

"We've got air!" Although she was expecting it, Martha was somewhat amazed. "How does that work?"

"Be glad it does," the Doctor pointed out dryly.

Reinette's expression was sad.

"It is so desolate," she said softly. "So vast, and perhaps beautiful in its own fashion, yet so empty and devoid of life."

"That's right, I'd forgotten you wouldn't ever have seen a picture of it," the Doctor commented, turning to Reinette. His gaze became intent as he studied her face, reading her emotions. "What do you think?"

"I find it heartbreaking," Reinette confided quietly.

"Hang on, she's never seen a picture of the moon?" Martha asked, confused. "How does that work?"

"Right, introduction time," the Doctor announced. "Martha, you remember Reinette told you that my ship can travel anywhere in space and time?" He held his hand out and Reinette rested her own on top of it lightly, as the Doctor brought her forward. "Martha Jones, meet Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, better known as Madame de Pompadour."

Reinette gave a truly lovely smile, and curtsied lightly with dignity.

"You're kidding me," Martha gasped. "That is _not_ Madame de Pompadour!"

Reinette smiled in amusement.

"I hate to dispel your illusions of the world, but he speaks truly. I am indeed, Madame de Pompadour."

"Blimey." Martha's worldview had to make a few adjustments. "I'm standing on the moon with an alien and Madame de Pompadour. Dunno which is weirder." She glanced back at the Doctor. "So what _are_ the two of you doing here, anyway? Seems like it's a pretty big coincidence that the same day you come in, we're transported to the moon."

The Doctor grinned widely at her.

"Again, Martha Jones, good point!"

"You can just call me Martha, if you like," Martha interrupted. If he kept calling her 'Martha Jones' all the time it was going to drive her mad.

"Just Martha then, yes, well, I was just wandering, I wasn't looking for trouble, honestly, I wasn't, but I noticed these plasma coils around the hospital, and that lightning, that's plasma coils, been building up for two days now, so I checked in, I thought something was going on inside, and, well, looks like I was right, doesn't it?" He looked around at the barren landscape, while Martha wondered how on earth he'd managed to get that all out at once.

"So it's extraterrestrial, then?" she asked.

"Yup," the Doctor agreed. He stuck a hand in his pocket, and a moment later pulled out a small stone. He flung it off the balcony as hard as he could. Several metres away the pebble glanced off something.

"A forcefield?" Reinette guessed, her expression intent.

"Keeping all the air in," the Doctor confirmed. He looked pensive.

"If that's like a bubble sealing us in," Martha began, uneasiness building, "that means this is the only air we've got. What happens when it runs out?"

"How many people in this hospital?" the Doctor deflected the question.

"I don't know, a thousand?" Martha was pretty sure she wasn't going to like what he said next.

"Then there will be one thousand people, dying from the lack of air," Reinette said soberly.

-

Their attention was caught by shiny ships, landing in the distance. Martha watched in amazement as strange creatures began marching across the moon dust, towards the hospital.

"They look a lot more alien than you do."

"Judoon," the Doctor said darkly, ignoring her observation.

"Judoon?" Reinette asked curiously. "You have not mentioned them before."

"They're kind of like galactic police," the Doctor said absently. "I say kind of, because they're more like mercenaries operating for the police. Well, I say mercenaries, but more like thugs."

"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?" Martha asked in concern, hoping for the former.

"Ehhhhh…" the Doctor tugged at his ear and didn't seem to want to answer.

"Doctor…" Reinette said in a warning tone.

"Well, it depends what they're after, I suppose," the Doctor conceded reluctantly. "C'mon, let's go downstairs, see what's going on." He put a hand on each woman's shoulder as he said this, and before they could say anything sprinted from the balcony.

Reinette groaned and turned to follow him.

"Always this running." She took Martha's hand. "Come."

The two women ran after the alien madman.

-

**END CHAPTER**

* * *

**Author note:**

_So, as you can see, the Doctor's adventures will kind of follow series three, at least to start with. Then they'll diverge. Next chapter is the Doctor again; then Rose. I hope to get the first story arc of this done in 2010, at least: what Rose and the Doctor get up to while apart, whether they get back together again -eyeroll- and if so, how that happens, and of course, Rose's evolving relationship with the TARDIS, which is really what will propel the plot in this, even though that hasn't really surfaced yet._


End file.
